It's only recently that the parties have become polarized by sex. I wonder how this has affected the results, and if they would have been different back when right and left didn't correspond to male and female.
Interesting. I wonder how much of the difference between more or less heavily masculinised faces is read (whether consciously or not) on the level of genetics/innate characteristics vs behaviour/preference manifestations. Eg gymrat or rugby player body (acquired) SHOULD imply more than a strong jawline or relatively thick neck. But I'm wondering if it does...
Harder to do with faces, but could cross the masculinisation degree with symbolic markers of physically aggressive masculinity eg give them "middle class" longer/fuller haircut vs "lower class" crewcuts (or whatever works in your population, I'm using UK correlates). I'd predict that this would wipe out the masculinised face effect.
I just found this. I lean left but I'm no LWA, not by a long shot. I can offer one reason why some liberals in general might avoid or be wary of masculine-looking men: Potential for an abusive personality. I've always been quite wary of very muscular, masculine looking- and -acting men. They're hot, for sure, but I tended to stay away from them when i was younger. I figured out early on that overt masculinity, and esp hyper-masculinity, tended to hide personalities that could be inclined toward partner violence. I knew that didn't mean they WERE prone to abuse, but I learned early on to screen men via masculinity or 'bro' culture', including certain professions, pasttimes, cultures and religions. (About 15 years ago I was on a coffee date with someone and dismayed to hear him say he was into boxing - not watching, doing). My warning bells went off. Then he went on to act like an idiot so it was easy to drop him). I can't speak for LWAs, but I caution *all* women to screen heavily the more-masculine men. Some of them are awesome wonderful people. You just have to be careful.
Out of interest, how did you learn this exactly? You say that early on you learned that hyper masculinity tended to hide personalities that ‘could’ be inclined towards partner violence…. It sounds less like learning from personal experience of ‘actual’ danger or threat and more like a learned prejudice?
For one, hyper masculinity as you call it is a behavioural or personality trait that is observed from a subjective point of view. It could be related to a persons physical attributes but not intrinsic in its link. Plenty of short skinny people exhibit hyper masculine behaviour.
Secondly, robustly masculine physiques are something that can be construed as intimidating for both male and female. Why? Because size and power is an easily observable trait that we understand can out compete us for available resources so we defer to it….generally speaking.
The current social phenomena of fear of men that LWA’s are dishonesty and manipulatively exploiting for social and political power, is based on that natural response any human has when it encounters a bigger and stronger person. We feel somewhat less sure of our surroundings. Knowing that there is this nearby presence that is a new potential threat to our ability to secure the resources that we need. It may come as a complete shock to women, but that feeling is not gendered, it’s broadly felt and understood across the species.
The only element that is gendered is the weaponisation of that fear and trepidation to infect society with an excuse to unreasonably discriminate and generalise a false perception of men. The sheer idiocy of western societies adopting measures towards equality through discrimination should be enough in itself to jolt people from this reductive thinking but sadly it’s just the modern equivalent of ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’.
You bring up some very good points and the short answer to "How did you learn this, exactly?" is from my mother, who drilled it into my head at an early age never to tolerate men who control, verbally castigate, and especially hitters. She didn't get into hyper-masculinity. The more interesting question is, where did my *mother* learn this, because her mother didn't talk to her about this (I asked), and she was never abused either by my grandfather or either of her husbands (my father being the second). Unfortunately, i waited until way too long to ask her, when she was in her eighties, and could no longer remember.
I took my mother's lessons to heart, and through the experience of growing up I came to notice that the seriously hyper-masculine were more misogynist. Beginning with little boys' weird phobia about girls which I found mystifying. Barry, the kid next door, sometimes played nice with me and sometimes didn't, citing an unwillingness to play with a girl (although he didn't have much choice, on our small block the only other boy in the neighbourhood was a teenager, I think, or maybe a tween. Anyway, several years old than us). I asked my mother why little boys said they hated girls and she couldn't answer that. That's just the way they are, I think she said.
In grade school, I learned to recognize the 'nice' boys who didn't hate girls and regularly got along with us, and the little jerks who did hate us. (A few of the 'nice' boys I suspect were gay now, although I had no concept of that at the time.)
In middle school and high school is when I really began to connect hyper-masculinity to misogyny (we didn't really know that term at the time) and male jerkiness. Now, I can appreciate the way you stood up for 'hyper-masculinity' as a good thing and you're right, totally agree with you. It's why I say I approach with *caution*. I can dig hypermasculine guys. I have a thing for younger Stallone because he's super-hypermasculine BUT he always plays 'nice' guys, heroic types, often very violent but never toward women. In his private life, or to work with him, AFAIK, he doesn't batter women or treat them badly...I think he's been mildly MeToo'ed but the allegations didn't sound convincing. Not saying they didn't happen, just that, even if they did, they didn't sound anything like Weinstein or Cosby.
When I meet a seemingly hypermasc guy I'm on my guard, I'm cautious until I get to know him. Many are decent dudes; and you're right, some skinny guys, and especially certain short guys, have massive chips on their shoulder (like Bagel Man a few years ago--I have sympathy for the fact that he probably *has* been laughed at and mistreated by women for his size, but it was no excuse for going apeshit in a bagel store...and I understand Peter Dinklage, the little-person actor, does very well for himself and he's a lot shorter than Bagel Man.
I do have sympathy for your critiques about how LWAs have exploited a *natural* and *evolutionary* fear women have developed for strange men, never knowing who the violent and/or rapist ones were until you got to know them, and demonizing all men with it. And, quite hypocritically, then turning around and demanding that women accept 'transwomen' into our bathrooms and changing rooms, and even *women's prisons*, to fear nothing, that they'll hurt no one (not true and I've got a running list of the TW sex offenders), in direct defiance of women's natural wariness of strange men. After all, men can kill us much more easily than we can kill them.
But it doesn't justify demonizing men, and people are beginning to speak up more now, both sexes. And that was a very long-ass answer to your question and I may turn it into a better-written article at some point. And I forgot to mention something else I noticed as I moved into college: The connection between severe homophobia and misogyny. Some men felt mild distaste at gay sex or gay guys but would never give them any crap; they weren't even real homophobes. The genuinely homophobic were violently against men who had gay sex (but oh, never gay women doing the same!) even if they never beat up a gay person. They'd just get very angry and defensive and make me wonder, "So what's his deal? is he afraid of homosexual tendencies he feels or does he just hate women?" Those were the two pat answers we were offered back then, twenty years ago, and I think they still stand although the answer is more complex now. But anyway, there it is. The evolution of my wariness about hypermasculine men, while recognizing that many of them are good guys who don't go out of their way to hurt others and go so far as to protect others. Thanks for asking!
That was a considerably longer answer and response than I ever expected. I’m still somewhat in shock that I wasn’t cock shamed, dismissed as an abuser myself or even reported as a predator.
So frequent and common are those kind of responses to any challenge to a feminist orthodoxy.
So for that alone you earn my considerable respect and appreciation.
I would happily give you a male perspective on many of those questions that remain unanswered for you should you wish? I won’t engage in such a conversation by written prose as the effort required to convey the of universality of many human emotions and behaviours is too fraught by such method.
We lose far too much of the human experience of communications when tone, texture, presence and emotion can not be observed with such dialogue. Accordingly, sincerity, authenticity can either be misconstrued or worse, manufactured by malignant types.
Should you be inclined, don’t hesitate to ask and I’ll gladly try to facilitate such a mutual exchange of thoughts, feelings and values. You’ve brightened my day and granted a glimmer of hope that there are brave and independent minds in all corners of all positions, yet capable of holding us together as a species
Well, Craig, I laughed out loud at your first paragraph and thought, "He must not be a regular reader 'coz he has no clue what I really think about feminism, men, men's issues, etc.!" If you click on 'Feminism' or 'Don't Be The Victim' at the top of my substack main page nav bar, you'll see that my feminist views are more out of line with 'mainstream' feminism. in fact, another Substack writer has asked me to write for his Substack about female agency which I'm working on right now. The AI helping me with the editing (NOT the writing, it's all my own!) says I do not, in fact, hold mainstream views, which I thought I did because I find myself being redundant in this article in progress--with my previous articles, and since I'm not exactly a Substack top writer, IOW, this is still news to everybody that women have choice and agency and that 'fauxminism' teaches them to pay lip service to it while abandoning it.
That said, I would LOVE to talk with you about this more. what do you suggest, a Zoom? I'm in Toronto. I'm looking for more contacts and friends with folks who think outside the box, and either lean right or left without, as I note at the top of all my articles, don't let their brains fall out. I'm tired of right- and left-wing extremism, and I know dudes are feeling pretty beaten up by the left/Democrats/feminists/the woke and I wonder....how can we change this, together? Feel free to reach out to me in a direct message, I'll accept your request.
It's only recently that the parties have become polarized by sex. I wonder how this has affected the results, and if they would have been different back when right and left didn't correspond to male and female.
Interesting. I wonder how much of the difference between more or less heavily masculinised faces is read (whether consciously or not) on the level of genetics/innate characteristics vs behaviour/preference manifestations. Eg gymrat or rugby player body (acquired) SHOULD imply more than a strong jawline or relatively thick neck. But I'm wondering if it does...
Harder to do with faces, but could cross the masculinisation degree with symbolic markers of physically aggressive masculinity eg give them "middle class" longer/fuller haircut vs "lower class" crewcuts (or whatever works in your population, I'm using UK correlates). I'd predict that this would wipe out the masculinised face effect.
I just found this. I lean left but I'm no LWA, not by a long shot. I can offer one reason why some liberals in general might avoid or be wary of masculine-looking men: Potential for an abusive personality. I've always been quite wary of very muscular, masculine looking- and -acting men. They're hot, for sure, but I tended to stay away from them when i was younger. I figured out early on that overt masculinity, and esp hyper-masculinity, tended to hide personalities that could be inclined toward partner violence. I knew that didn't mean they WERE prone to abuse, but I learned early on to screen men via masculinity or 'bro' culture', including certain professions, pasttimes, cultures and religions. (About 15 years ago I was on a coffee date with someone and dismayed to hear him say he was into boxing - not watching, doing). My warning bells went off. Then he went on to act like an idiot so it was easy to drop him). I can't speak for LWAs, but I caution *all* women to screen heavily the more-masculine men. Some of them are awesome wonderful people. You just have to be careful.
Out of interest, how did you learn this exactly? You say that early on you learned that hyper masculinity tended to hide personalities that ‘could’ be inclined towards partner violence…. It sounds less like learning from personal experience of ‘actual’ danger or threat and more like a learned prejudice?
For one, hyper masculinity as you call it is a behavioural or personality trait that is observed from a subjective point of view. It could be related to a persons physical attributes but not intrinsic in its link. Plenty of short skinny people exhibit hyper masculine behaviour.
Secondly, robustly masculine physiques are something that can be construed as intimidating for both male and female. Why? Because size and power is an easily observable trait that we understand can out compete us for available resources so we defer to it….generally speaking.
The current social phenomena of fear of men that LWA’s are dishonesty and manipulatively exploiting for social and political power, is based on that natural response any human has when it encounters a bigger and stronger person. We feel somewhat less sure of our surroundings. Knowing that there is this nearby presence that is a new potential threat to our ability to secure the resources that we need. It may come as a complete shock to women, but that feeling is not gendered, it’s broadly felt and understood across the species.
The only element that is gendered is the weaponisation of that fear and trepidation to infect society with an excuse to unreasonably discriminate and generalise a false perception of men. The sheer idiocy of western societies adopting measures towards equality through discrimination should be enough in itself to jolt people from this reductive thinking but sadly it’s just the modern equivalent of ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’.
You bring up some very good points and the short answer to "How did you learn this, exactly?" is from my mother, who drilled it into my head at an early age never to tolerate men who control, verbally castigate, and especially hitters. She didn't get into hyper-masculinity. The more interesting question is, where did my *mother* learn this, because her mother didn't talk to her about this (I asked), and she was never abused either by my grandfather or either of her husbands (my father being the second). Unfortunately, i waited until way too long to ask her, when she was in her eighties, and could no longer remember.
I took my mother's lessons to heart, and through the experience of growing up I came to notice that the seriously hyper-masculine were more misogynist. Beginning with little boys' weird phobia about girls which I found mystifying. Barry, the kid next door, sometimes played nice with me and sometimes didn't, citing an unwillingness to play with a girl (although he didn't have much choice, on our small block the only other boy in the neighbourhood was a teenager, I think, or maybe a tween. Anyway, several years old than us). I asked my mother why little boys said they hated girls and she couldn't answer that. That's just the way they are, I think she said.
In grade school, I learned to recognize the 'nice' boys who didn't hate girls and regularly got along with us, and the little jerks who did hate us. (A few of the 'nice' boys I suspect were gay now, although I had no concept of that at the time.)
In middle school and high school is when I really began to connect hyper-masculinity to misogyny (we didn't really know that term at the time) and male jerkiness. Now, I can appreciate the way you stood up for 'hyper-masculinity' as a good thing and you're right, totally agree with you. It's why I say I approach with *caution*. I can dig hypermasculine guys. I have a thing for younger Stallone because he's super-hypermasculine BUT he always plays 'nice' guys, heroic types, often very violent but never toward women. In his private life, or to work with him, AFAIK, he doesn't batter women or treat them badly...I think he's been mildly MeToo'ed but the allegations didn't sound convincing. Not saying they didn't happen, just that, even if they did, they didn't sound anything like Weinstein or Cosby.
When I meet a seemingly hypermasc guy I'm on my guard, I'm cautious until I get to know him. Many are decent dudes; and you're right, some skinny guys, and especially certain short guys, have massive chips on their shoulder (like Bagel Man a few years ago--I have sympathy for the fact that he probably *has* been laughed at and mistreated by women for his size, but it was no excuse for going apeshit in a bagel store...and I understand Peter Dinklage, the little-person actor, does very well for himself and he's a lot shorter than Bagel Man.
I do have sympathy for your critiques about how LWAs have exploited a *natural* and *evolutionary* fear women have developed for strange men, never knowing who the violent and/or rapist ones were until you got to know them, and demonizing all men with it. And, quite hypocritically, then turning around and demanding that women accept 'transwomen' into our bathrooms and changing rooms, and even *women's prisons*, to fear nothing, that they'll hurt no one (not true and I've got a running list of the TW sex offenders), in direct defiance of women's natural wariness of strange men. After all, men can kill us much more easily than we can kill them.
But it doesn't justify demonizing men, and people are beginning to speak up more now, both sexes. And that was a very long-ass answer to your question and I may turn it into a better-written article at some point. And I forgot to mention something else I noticed as I moved into college: The connection between severe homophobia and misogyny. Some men felt mild distaste at gay sex or gay guys but would never give them any crap; they weren't even real homophobes. The genuinely homophobic were violently against men who had gay sex (but oh, never gay women doing the same!) even if they never beat up a gay person. They'd just get very angry and defensive and make me wonder, "So what's his deal? is he afraid of homosexual tendencies he feels or does he just hate women?" Those were the two pat answers we were offered back then, twenty years ago, and I think they still stand although the answer is more complex now. But anyway, there it is. The evolution of my wariness about hypermasculine men, while recognizing that many of them are good guys who don't go out of their way to hurt others and go so far as to protect others. Thanks for asking!
That was a considerably longer answer and response than I ever expected. I’m still somewhat in shock that I wasn’t cock shamed, dismissed as an abuser myself or even reported as a predator.
So frequent and common are those kind of responses to any challenge to a feminist orthodoxy.
So for that alone you earn my considerable respect and appreciation.
I would happily give you a male perspective on many of those questions that remain unanswered for you should you wish? I won’t engage in such a conversation by written prose as the effort required to convey the of universality of many human emotions and behaviours is too fraught by such method.
We lose far too much of the human experience of communications when tone, texture, presence and emotion can not be observed with such dialogue. Accordingly, sincerity, authenticity can either be misconstrued or worse, manufactured by malignant types.
Should you be inclined, don’t hesitate to ask and I’ll gladly try to facilitate such a mutual exchange of thoughts, feelings and values. You’ve brightened my day and granted a glimmer of hope that there are brave and independent minds in all corners of all positions, yet capable of holding us together as a species
Respect ✊
Well, Craig, I laughed out loud at your first paragraph and thought, "He must not be a regular reader 'coz he has no clue what I really think about feminism, men, men's issues, etc.!" If you click on 'Feminism' or 'Don't Be The Victim' at the top of my substack main page nav bar, you'll see that my feminist views are more out of line with 'mainstream' feminism. in fact, another Substack writer has asked me to write for his Substack about female agency which I'm working on right now. The AI helping me with the editing (NOT the writing, it's all my own!) says I do not, in fact, hold mainstream views, which I thought I did because I find myself being redundant in this article in progress--with my previous articles, and since I'm not exactly a Substack top writer, IOW, this is still news to everybody that women have choice and agency and that 'fauxminism' teaches them to pay lip service to it while abandoning it.
That said, I would LOVE to talk with you about this more. what do you suggest, a Zoom? I'm in Toronto. I'm looking for more contacts and friends with folks who think outside the box, and either lean right or left without, as I note at the top of all my articles, don't let their brains fall out. I'm tired of right- and left-wing extremism, and I know dudes are feeling pretty beaten up by the left/Democrats/feminists/the woke and I wonder....how can we change this, together? Feel free to reach out to me in a direct message, I'll accept your request.